Jones not feeling the pressure of being top

Hatters boss Nathan Jones doesn’t subscribe to the view there is any extra pressure on his side being top of the table going into the Christmas period.

Town currently lead the way, with a two point advantage over Notts County ahead of a crucial sequence that will see Luton play four times in just 10 days.

Jones is clearly relishing his side's lofty position though, as he said: “We like being top, people say is it more difficult, I don’t think it’s more difficult being top.

“People want to beat Luton, people come here and they know we’re a decent side, so I don’t think it adds any more pressure to us.

“It’s wonderful being top of the league, it’s better than being bottom, better than being mid-table, better than being second.”

Hatters saw their advantage over fourth place cut to seven points after Coventry City leapfrogged Wycombe with a 3-2 win over their rivals last night.

Jones admitted that given the chance, he would be happier improving their lead over whoever is just below the automatic promotion spots during the next run of games, as he he continued: “The goal is to get promoted, so the more important gap is the one to fourth place and we want to extend that.

“If someone gave me the opportunity to extend that rather than the one to second place then you’d do that, naturally.

“As time goes on, then you’d look at both gaps, if you’ve got both gaps, because it’s important.”

Meanwhile, Jones knows that his squad will get fully tested in the next fortnight, starting at home to Grimsby this afternoon.

They then visit Swindon on Boxing Day, Port Vale next Saturday and host Lincoln on New Year’s Day, as the Town chief added: “It is a busy period, it’s crazy really, probably one game too many, but that’s the schedule and the football calendar.

“It’s a popular one with fans, so we know that it’s the holiday period for most, but not us.

“I don’t envisage the same 11 starting Saturday and finishing the game at Lincoln, playing all the minutes, that won’t happen.

“If we want to maintain energy levels, quality levels, we’re going to have to use the squad.

“These are the times that we need the squad for, we want to be as strong as we possibly can.

“We’ve got that, we can make changes which give us different characteristics rather than weaken characteristics and that’s the blessing we have.

“So the squad will get tested over this Christmas period, but I'm sure a lot of squads will.”